No New Center-Back Signed Because Of Youth Development

Written by Dr. Ed Harrison

8:46am Friday, September 14th, 2012

Commented 20 times

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Alan Pardew has surprisingly said that the reason that Newcastle decided not to bring in a new center-back to the club in the summer, was that Newcastle have two top youngsters coming through, and he didn’t want to put a damper on their development.

James Tavernier – top defender coming through The two youngsters he mentioned are 20 year-old James Tavernier and Remi Streete, the 17 year-old South Shields born 6’2″ defender, who has been recovering from an injury picked up earlier in the year.

However, James is just short of 5’10” tall and may be struggling as a center-back with the high crosses coming in, but Remi Streete is a top youngster coming through at the center-back position, but has been recovering from an injury he picked up earlier in the year.

And of course we also brought in 19 year-old Australian center-back Curtis Good in the summer.

Newcastle now have three of their five starting defenders out through injury for the game at Everton on Monday night – Tim Krul, Danny Simpson and Fab Coloccini – and we suppose Steve Harper, Vurnon Anita and Mike Williamson will come in to fill those gaps at Goodison Park.

This is what the Newcastle manager said yesterday:

“I felt at the start of the year, when we looked at the centre-half situation, that bringing someone in would stand in the way of two players with great futures at the club – James Tavernier and Remi Streete.”

“We won’t be calling on those guys just yet but we will somewhere down the line.” “You have to look at a club as a whole and there has to be a route to the first team otherwise you’re not going to progress as a club.”

And in addition we have Ryan Taylor out at least six months with a cruciate knee injury, and Ryan may even be out for the season.

Newcastle’s squad is being hit by injury and it’s all well and good to have an excellent youth policy, but on the other hand it’s always dangerous if you have to play the youngsters too much or too early in their development.

And surely we should not be relying too heavily on youth this season, but it seems that’s exactly what has happened and the Newcastle Board, presumably with Alan’s approval, have elected to bring in just one experienced player over the summer in Vurnon Anita from Ajax.

That could turn out to be a massive tactical error, and we’re already seeing the results of not having a big enough squad – when we are also back in Europe again – and the squad is already being stretched in the first month of the season, after only five games have been played.

20 comments so far

As much as I would love the youngsters coming through the ranks and getting games,I also feel it was a big gamble not bringing in a versatile defender who can play anywhere along the back four this summer becasuse of our thin defensive cover.Anyways heres hoping for the best!

Well, we know Pardiola is a master diplomat and has to be careful not to offend his boss, just like any sensible employee, but he usually manages to come up with something believable. Tavernier as a centre half?? This is, simply, unbelievable.

Every supporter knows we should have signed a centre half last January in view of Taylor’s injury; but we winged it until summer, and then didn’t sign one again! We have more fixtures this season than last, and it is plain bad management to have such thin defensive resources. I’m totally in favour of our owner’s policy of buying shrewdly, it’s clearly the only sensible approach, but I don’t consider the failure in two successive transfer windows to sign a first-team centre half to be shrewd at all.

I only hope we don’t pay the all-too-likely price in terms of results over the nest few weeks while the inevitable injuries expose, cruelly early, the lack of sound judgement in this case.

Yeah, I noticed this bit of guff last night. You can always say ‘one man’s loss is another’s opportunity’, or ‘its an ill wind… ‘etc. But seriously, its embarrassing as an excuse. I hope it is a one-off and doesn’t reflect what Pardew truly thinks of fans’ intelligence or indeed that he is so far under Mashley’s thumb he’s prepared to defend his lack of investment at the expense of making a fool of himself. But it won’t wash as an explanation.

I think Pardew would accept privately that we would have been in a better position had we signed eg Douglas, but if we can’t get the right people for the right price, the alternative of promoting our youngsters to tide us over is not such a bad option.

toonincheek – maybe it’s not a bad option but wouldn’t it be better if Pardew had come out beforehand and said he didn’t want to stunt the development of his promising youngsters by buying new players? Perhaps, as Sav says, we then wouldn’t feel that he was trying to insult the fans’ intelligence with these pathetic excuses. Have always had a lot of time for Pardew but his daily comments (obviously instigated by The Master) are beginning to diminish that respect.

this theory of having a small squad is nonsense. every premier league team has to pick a squad of 24 or something, we’ve picked our squad, therefore we have the same number of players to use as do Manchester City for example (obviously quality in depth is slightly different;) )

On the plus side at least these young players have a Desire to come through and try to push for a start. The Douglas scenario was a huge farce. Why go for a player who showed zero Desire to play for us and stated bigger clubs than ours were interested in him. I would much rather have a young local, albeit inexperienced player, whom the club regard as potential stars, rather than another player who is just happy to receive a hefty paycheck.

there is a logic, however, with the amount of games coming up, league, league cup, fa cup and now europa league, there are plenty of opportunities to give young players experience. There isn’t however, many opportunities (especially lately) for us to compete in a european competition and push the top 4 for more money and champions league spots. Just saying, there’s a time and a place for youth. Bringing an experienced player in doesn’t stop the manager from playing youth, it’s his choice who he plays, which means a bigger squad means more cover, not less opportunities!

Whinge Whinge by the arm chair supporters. Every club gets injuries it is part of football. Good to see how excited all the Ashley hater’s at the thought the Toon doing badly. You sad people. Man United won the Premiership with kids. We have some great young players in the reserves who deserve a chance. Alan Pardew won the Manager of the Year last season not bad for a puppet. As for all the bollocks at being a top 4 team get real last season was a fluke. This is real life not FIFA 2012. Actually following Newcastle home and away makes you a supporter which I sincerely doubt many of the people on here actually do.

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Transfers Summer 2017

Player

Fee

Club

INCOMING

Christian Atsu

£6.2M

Chelsea

Florian Lejeune

£8.8M

Eibar

Jacob Murphy

£10M

Norwich

Javier Manquillo

£4.5M

Atletico Madrid

Mikel Merino

£2.5M Loan – season

Borussia Dortmund

Kenedy

Loan – season – pending

Chelsea

Joselu

£5.0M

Stoke City

Transfer Fees In

£37.0M

OUTGOING

Vurnon Anita

Released

Aston Villa

Sammy Ameobi

Released

Bolton

Haris Vuckic

Released

FC Twente

Lubo Satka

Released

FC DAC 1904

Florian Thauvin

£10.0M

Marseille

Kevin Mbabu

£1.0M

Young Boys

Matz Sels

Loan – season

Anderlecht

Yoan Gouffran

Released

Goztepe

Adam Armstrong

Loan – season

Bolton

Lewis Gibson

£1.0M Up to £5M in add-ons

Everton

Daryl Murphy

£2.0M

Nottingham Forest

Ivan Toney

Loan – season

Wigan Athletic

Transfer Fees Out

£14.0M

Net Spend

£23M

Preseason Friendlies 2017

Club

Location

Date

Hearts Won 2-1

Tynecastle

Friday 14th July 7:45pm

Preston Drew 1-1

Deepdale

Saturday 22nd July 3:00pm

Bradford Won 4-0

Valley Parade

Wednesday 26th July 7:30pm

Mainz 05 Lost 2-1

Opel Arena, Mainz

Saturday 29th July 4:00 pm local time

Wolfsburg Won 3-1

AOK Stadium, Wolfsburg

Wednesday 2nd August 4:00pm local time

Hellas Verona Wopn 2-0

St. James’ Park

Sunday 6th August 3:00pm

football club

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